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Many Republicans are refusing to meet with Obama's Supreme Court nominee and pledge to wait until the next president takes office.

President Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland, right, meets Republican blockade as he heads to Capitol Hill for his first official visit. (Ron Sachs / TNS)

By Karoun DemirjianThe Washington Post

Thu., March 17, 2016

WASHINGTON - President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee will make his first official visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with top Senate Democrats. But Republican leaders plan to make him wait for an audience, if they grant him one at all.

Merrick Garland, 63, who is currently chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, plans to sit down with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in separate meetings on Thursday afternoon.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., isn’t planning on meeting with the new nominee, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, won’t be granting him any face time until April at the earliest, following Congress’s two-week break, according to White House spokesman Eric Schultz. Grassley’s office said no meeting had been confirmed.

Republicans are fiercely resisting pressure from the White House to consider Garland’s nomination, pledging to wait until the next president takes office to vet a new justice since Obama is less than a year away from leaving the White House.

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They have refused to schedule any confirmation hearings, and many Republicans—including McConnell—are also rejecting face-to-face meetings.

Grassley and McConnell both took calls from Garland Wednesday afternoon. McConnell’s office described the phone call as a “more considerate” use of Garland’s time that would avoid “more unnecessary political routines orchestrated by the White House.”

Grassley spokeswoman Beth Levine said the senator congratulated Garland but informed him Republicans didn’t intend to move on a nomination until after a new president was in office. Grassley plans to repeat that to Garland if a meeting is scheduled, she added.

McConnell, Grassley and others stress their objection to Garland’s nomination isn’t personal—several Republican senators said on Wednesday they like Garland as a person, and seven of them voted to confirm him to the federal bench back in 1997. They also argue their opposition isn’t political, since no one knows which party will next occupy the White House—though some GOPers also contend Obama lost his popular mandate to make a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court when the Senate went Republican in 2014.

“People spoke in the midterm election and [Obama] came out on the short end of that,” Grassley told reporters on Wednesday. “In America, a democracy, you have to accept the judgment of the voters.”

Garland, a centrist, appears to have a decent reputation among Senate Republicans, some of whom surmised that Obama made his pick expressly to try to force Republicans to abandon their demand to delay confirmation.

“I think he was really trying to pick somebody that he thought at least some Senate Republicans would accept right now,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a member of the Judiciary Committee tasked with considering Supreme Court nominations.

A handful of Senate Republicans said they would be willing to at least talk with Garland and consider his nomination, even if the Judiciary Committee doesn’t plan to move forward with the formal confirmation process. There was also buzz about the possibility of considering Garland during a lame-duck session after the presidential election if it’s won by a Democrat.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he “would certainly prefer a pick like Garland, rather than someone Hillary Clinton might put up” if she wins the election.

Flake is one of about a half-dozen Republicans who said they would be willing to sit down with Garland—something Democrats are claiming as a preliminary victory.

But even some of Garland’s Senate friends are not willing to abandon principle in order to advance his nomination.

Hatch was one of seven sitting Republican senators to back putting Garland on the federal bench in 1997 -- and told reporters he “fought for him” back then, during Garland’s long confirmation process.

“But this is different,” Hatch said, describing the current environment as too “toxic” and “politicized” to consider anybody.

Of the seven Republicans who previously voted for Garland—a list that also includes Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Dan Coats, R-Ind., Thad Cochran, R-Miss., James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan. - only two, Collins and Inhofe, said on Wednesday they were willing to consider and evaluate Garland.

“I will be examining Chief Judge Garland’s judicial record, as well as other relevant materials,” Collins said in a statement, calling Garland an “accomplished jurist.”

“This is the approach I have taken with every judicial nominee who has come before me throughout my service in the Senate, and that is the process that I will follow with this nomination as well,” she said.

Democrats are also hoping that political pressure forces vulnerable Senate Republicans up for reelection this year to reconsider their opposition and push GOP leaders to put him through the confirmation process.

But even vulnerable Republicans are holding firm at this point, echoing McConnell’s line that the next president should pick the new justice.

“I continue to believe the Senate should not move forward with the confirmation process until the people have spoken by electing a new president,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said in a statement.

“After the election, I look forward to considering the nominee of our new president,” Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said in a statement as well.

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